Giacomo di San Genesio

Giacomo di San Genesio (died 25 July 1492) was an Italian-Jewish physician. In 1492, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia called on Giacomo to care for the dying Pope Innocent VIII, who was sick with fever; Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere claimed that inviting a Jew to the Vatican was blasphemy. San Genesio had the Pope drink the blood of three ten-year-old boys in the world's first blood transfusion, but this failed, as the Pope died on 25 July 1492. That same day, Della Rovere had an assassin stab him in the chest with his dagger, before another assassin approached him from behind and slit his throat.